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Gaming Discussion => Other Games => Topic started by: Stratovarius on August 30, 2017, 07:25:49 AM

Title: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on August 30, 2017, 07:25:49 AM
Any fans of Ascension here? It's a deck building card game designed by several M:tG professionals and is a much cheaper way to get your fix in. Free, if you use iOS or Android.
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: RedWarlock on August 30, 2017, 08:19:03 PM
Semi-free. You can buy the later expansions as unlocks. I actually started with the physical game itself, got like 8-9ish boxes on my gaming shelf (all but the most-recent, I think?).

We eventually made up a custom dice roller for serving out monster/faction cards and treasure because the single pile became too unwieldy. Eventually decided that the later expansions' new resource mechanics made a big all-expansions-at-once game too thin-stretched.

I have it on iOS, as do a couple of my local gamer buddies. ID RedWarlock
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on August 30, 2017, 08:26:47 PM
True about base vs unlocks, although to my mind the unlocks sometimes add a few too many things. There's one particular combo of decks (the one that adds Dimension Diver + Reclamax) that lets you land an infinite combo pretty regularly. It gets flooded out in later versions by the addition of lots more cards, but a touch silly that it's there in the first place.

You probably just saw me add you, it's Stratovarius (what a shock  :o )
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: RedWarlock on August 30, 2017, 09:24:08 PM
You probably just saw me add you, it's Stratovarius (what a shock  :o )
Didn't see it when I checked, but I did add you back (did you get the capitalization right? Not sure if it affects it..) and I started a game to see how it plays. 1 day timer for pass-play? (I wonder if it uses notifications for turns played.. I could easily slip on it otherwise.)
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on August 30, 2017, 10:56:49 PM
You probably just saw me add you, it's Stratovarius (what a shock  :o )
Didn't see it when I checked, but I did add you back (did you get the capitalization right? Not sure if it affects it..) and I started a game to see how it plays. 1 day timer for pass-play? (I wonder if it uses notifications for turns played.. I could easily slip on it otherwise.)

It blipped me somehow when you sent the invite, although it disappeared right away. I'm traveling tomorrow, so I might miss my next turn, but we'll see.
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: RedWarlock on September 01, 2017, 03:54:17 AM
I don't know if it's just me, but I got a notif of it being my turn around 7pm Eastern, but when I tried to go on to play, it couldn't connect to server. Same thing now. Is the server is just down, or is my game bugged?
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on September 01, 2017, 04:30:25 AM
I don't know if it's just me, but I got a notif of it being my turn around 7pm Eastern, but when I tried to go on to play, it couldn't connect to server. Same thing now. Is the server is just down, or is my game bugged?

Not sure, I was able to log in just now.
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: RedWarlock on September 01, 2017, 04:50:36 AM
Gah. Okay, figured it out. Somehow it only connects when I'm on wifi, not from my phone's own internet. No idea why. (I was heading to this gym earlier this evening, turned it off when I left the house.)

Also, the game timer is a countdown for the total end-of-game, not turns? Explanation would've been nice. So, we've got like 5 hours to end of game? THAT'S not  gonna work. (Next time, remember to set it a 28 day game just for safety's sake...) They must do that to keep old in-progress games from littering the server memory. Annoying as hell, tho.
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on September 01, 2017, 05:15:26 AM
I didn't realize that until the clock started counting either. Never done MP before. Slightly weird chess style system.
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on September 01, 2017, 12:56:30 PM
I claim victory via luck and Mechana constructs! :P
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: RedWarlock on September 01, 2017, 01:20:57 PM
I claim victory via luck and Mechana constructs! :P
Yep, good one there. You hit end-game rounds where I was still playing mid-game.

Let's try another, shall we? 28 day timer, first 4 sets this time. :D
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on September 01, 2017, 01:28:19 PM
It's definitely luck - I normally play 120 vs the hard AI. Which is a very different game.
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: RedWarlock on September 04, 2017, 04:17:54 AM
Bah. You start the next one, use whatever sets you feel like.

I'm either in bad luck or just out of practice. Been a couple years since I actively played.
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on September 04, 2017, 04:21:43 AM
You were winning right up until the last turn. I got lucky when the Dandelion Witch gave me even more of a boost to the green cycle deck I'd built.

And I think a lot of people overlook that two Wandering Askaris can be banished for an extra turn, which is what gave me a real chance to come back.

I had some very weak early turns aside from deleting my terrible cards.
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: RedWarlock on September 04, 2017, 04:53:37 AM
Not so sure about until the last turn. In raw points I had you until the last, but in other cards you had me beat, despite my grabbing every Mechana construct I could manage. (One of my locals has his preferred strategy of grabbing every Mechana he can, since they have such a good cost-to-value ratio, let alone their cooperative effects.)

It's also a big shift when I'm used to 3p or 4p games. Maybe next time we throw in some AIs for competition?
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on September 04, 2017, 05:16:03 AM
You say that, but I actually had to make up about 20 raw points, and then picked up another ~10+ in card points on the last turn. That's the whole of the winning margin right there, plus a little extra, on both score counts. 
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on September 04, 2017, 12:18:08 PM
Can't seem to find a way to add AI into the multi-player...
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: RedWarlock on September 04, 2017, 10:21:43 PM
Arrgh. Alright, well, start up a new one anyway. Make sure to cap the timer.
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: RedWarlock on September 10, 2017, 02:34:29 AM
...Maybe a few too many games? I have trouble keeping track of progress or strategies. Any wins I've gotten are entirely blunt luck.
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on September 10, 2017, 08:33:10 AM
Ah, I just check the deck every time out if I don't remember where we are. Shows me what I've got and what I was aiming towards. It's usually enough to keep me on the right track.
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: RedWarlock on September 25, 2017, 07:59:15 PM
So, why is it every time the Rat King comes out, you banish it right away? Is leaving the rats out just sort of a fuck-you to the other player? You can’t afford to defeat it with power (thus getting both its honor AND all the rats’), so you rob the other player of being able to do so, getting no reward yourself?
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on September 25, 2017, 08:43:33 PM
Pretty much. I tend not to focus on scoring via monster killing most games, so high value monsters are the number one banishment target normally. Either that or terrible cards I don't want at all.

Also, unfortunately I don't have the later expansions, so even though you do the game won't let me play them. Grumble  :shakefist
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: RedWarlock on September 25, 2017, 11:57:31 PM
Ah, that explains it. What sets do you have up to, and I'll make sure to not include them on new challenges.

It's a shame, I've been having fun doing test games via AI using every second set (usually the booster to the new-gimmick sets) and still winning handily, even against the hard AI. (just finished a quick game that I won 150~ to 70~, surprising even me.) The new mechanics are interesting to play with. Rally, multi-unite, and transform cards are interesting without being gimmicky. Treasure cards are.. complex, I kinda wish they'd done more with it than just shards, but I can see why they didn't get there. I like energy but it's too reliant on shards, which can get oddly thin in a multi-set game. I'm still betting we're gonna get a set that introduces a generic construct of some kind, to go alongside the mystics/heavy infantry.
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on September 26, 2017, 06:07:52 AM
First four sets and three promo sets
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: RedWarlock on October 04, 2017, 01:57:18 AM
Okay, what the heck happened there? Whatever combo you are using, I can’t stand up to it. What set is it from? Maybe strike that one out?

Four out of five times, it feels like I’m still just getting started, and you finish the game on me. I can’t keep up. This isn’t a “git gud” scenario, because I can win handily on hard AI and even against other players I’ve randomly matched against.

Quite honestly, this is killing my enjoyment of the game. Maybe you’re just too experienced, like because you’ve played with those limited sets so much, it’s become more or less a solved game. Maybe stretch a little, try some new sets? I’m not going to sit around and be demolished over and over, though, I don’t find that enjoyable. That’s just going to drive me away from it entirely.
Title: Re: Ascension?
Post by: Stratovarius on October 04, 2017, 11:40:27 AM
So, I just took a look at the hands for the last game we finished, since it's the only one I can see.

In terms of cards, I see a few things:
You've still got a lot of the starting cards (apprentice, militia, mystic, heavy infantry). I banish those ASAP (apprentice/militia first).
You have a lot of lower value cheap cards like Prodigy, etc. Generally, I never pick these up.
You don't have many card drawing cards. These are critical, and the core of your deck building.
You don't have many centre row banishing cards (most of which are Enlightened). These give you a higher chance of getting decent cards on your turn, and almost always draw cards as well, feeding the previous point.
There's too much focus on monster killing. It's too random as a strategy, because you can't tell if the good monsters will be available to kill on the turns you have a high power score.

In terms of value cards, I look at them like this:
Green Point/Mana + Draw cards - Lionheart, Witches, Starchild
(Early game if at all possible) - Card banishing cards. Rai, Journeyman Apprentice, Black Hole, Void Apprentice, Deathsworn Warrior, etc. Getting rid of terrible cards lets your good ones appear more often.
Card drawing cards - Almost anything Enlightened, anything else with card drawing.
Mechana Constructs - often not that useful, but worth a lot of points
Reasonable filler cards when you can't get any of the above - Grangers, Heroes who don't meet the above requirements, Void Avenger, Brazer Drone, etc. This one is a little catch as catch can

In terms of strategy:
Delete any crap cards ASAP
Grab a few mystics (usually max of 4, occasionally more)
Buy cards listed above
Delete mystics

The only time I venture off-track is those games when there's a ton of red at the beginning. Usually have to grab a bunch of infantry, and then I do worse because getting to the card cycling is disrupted.

And I don't actually play the game that much, or normally under the same rules - I usually play 120 point games solo, and will often lose to the hard AI under 60 point rules because it brute forces points early using a heavy infantry spam with a few mixed in decent cards. Over the longer points I can build an engine to squash it reliably.

At some point, I should get the new decks/expansions, but I don't think the base strategy changes much - it's just how the rules of Ascension are written, or indeed any card cycling game.